


Death to the Toy Soldier

by SombraLuna



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Death to the Mechanisms Spoilers, Everyone is Dead, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SombraLuna/pseuds/SombraLuna
Summary: The Toy Soldier was never real.This wasn't disputable, by any means, because things that were real could choose. Things that were real could feel. Things that were real argued with Jonny when he said that cannibalism was morally okay if the person was already dead, even though he didn't care about morals in the first place. The Toy Soldier didn't feel anything at all, and it liked it that way! Well, as much as wood could enjoy something.a story about the death of the Mechanisms that focuses on the Toy Soldier
Relationships: The Toy Soldier & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	Death to the Toy Soldier

The Toy Soldier was never real. 

This wasn't disputable, by any means, because things that were real could choose. Things that were real could _feel._ Things that were real argued with Jonny when he said that cannibalism was morally okay if the person was already dead, even though he didn't care about morals in the first place. The Toy Soldier didn't feel anything at all, and it liked it that way! Well, as much as wood could enjoy something. 

Carmilla had told it that wood hadn't been good at conducting emotions. Carmilla had also told it that the Mechanisms would be broken, though, and that simply wasn't true! And yet, after millennia of adventures and battles and deaths and pain and joy, the Mechanisms simply _stopped._ It was the first time Carmilla's words had rung true.

Nastya went first, flinging herself out of the airlock and into the cold vacuum of space. She had clung to the last piece of the Aurora that she had met, the Toy Soldier noticed, and it had wished to understand her pain. 

It had wished to understand Jonny's pain, too, when he discovered her note and her frozen body floating through space. He hadn't bothered to retrieve it. She wasn't there anymore. He'd let out a bloodcurdling scream when the realization sank in, dropping to his knees and curling up into himself as if he could make himself small enough to vanish from existence. No one but Brian had approached him, because Jonny's bullets couldn't pierce his metal skin and because as Jonny sobbed into his shirt, everyone else made themselves scarce. 

It wondered why a part of it yearned to take Marius' hand and ease his agony when he realized the Inspector Edda he was enamoured with believed he had abandoned them. It wondered why the constant emptiness in its chest seemed to ache when he stopped speaking for a few years. 

It wondered why when Jonny himself died, on a nameless asteroid with his face branded into a permanent smile, that emptiness just grew. Perhaps it was a semblance of irony, it thought, as its wooden fingers ghosted over the punctured metal in his chest. It did not know why it took one of his belts with it, simply that before it left, the weight of unfamiliar leather rested across its body. 

When Ashes dies, the Toy Soldier is not there, nor does it wish to be. It knows how Ashes will die, and the fire licking at its paint and charring its wood makes it shudder, though it wonders if when the universe ends its body will still be there, as cold and unmoving as ever. It doesn't think about it too long. 

When Raphaella chooses her end, the Toy Soldier assists her as ordered, even though it knows her body will be torn apart piece by piece in the intense vacuum, and this time, she will not come back. It wonders why it wants to fight the order as she flaps her glowing wings and smiles as her skin frosts over. It wonders why it has no flesh and still _aches_ in its chest. It never receives an answer.

The Soldier assists Tim as he steals the largest gunship in existence, and helps him stock the ammo. It pretends it's back on the moon with Jonny, Bertie, and Tim, all singing songs of terror and bloodlust against the Moon Kaiser. Tim's hands tremble, though, in a way they haven't trembled in millennia and the Toy Soldier does something it has been forbidden to do. It hugs Tim goodbye. He doesn't come back. 

It misses Ivy. She spends her last few centuries on a library just as she was raised, and now and then she sends it transcripts of books she's read. It knows that she's attempting to preserve as much as she can before her death, but in the end, her letters to the Toy Soldier never make it to historians. It's a shame, really. They were the most interesting ones. 

When Marius dies, the Toy Soldier is the one to find his remains. It knows what it will find when it gets there and how it will be safe from the octokittens because they dislike the taste of its paint. It knows how all that will remain will be Marius' boots, his mono goggle, and shreds of his clothing. What it does not know is that it will take his goggle with it, hanging it from the belt it took from Jonny less than a century ago. It also does not know that when it returns to face Brian, painted tears will flow down its cheeks as it tells him the news. 

It begs Brian not to go, clinging to his coat and promising him that it will never flip his switch without permission and that it will even trade recipes with him. In the end, he orders it to let him eject himself from the airlock, and it does, though the painted tears now stain its wood for years to come. As it watches the metal man cast himself back into the void and complete the cycle of emptiness, it leans its forehead against the hull of the Aurora and shakes. She does too. 

The Toy Soldier and the Aurora float aimlessly through the galaxy for centuries with the soldier pretending to feel and playing at being a soldier just one last time until one day, the Aurora lands on a planet and she doesn't leave. The Toy Soldier doesn't leave her, of course, but sits in her corridors and sings tales that it once told one last time for her. As its eyes stare blankly out and its movements begin to slow, the Toy Soldier _feels_ more than it has ever felt and it remembers. Perhaps the tears that stream down its face are water, but as the Aurora slips away too, no one will ever be able to tell. 

And so, the Toy Soldier stops pretending to be real. Its joints stiffen with a wooden creaking, its eyes stop moving, and its body goes limp. The vocal cords that live on in its throat, the last remains of its true love, finally begin to decay. The last of the Mechanisms close the book, and the story ends. 

**Author's Note:**

> its 5 30 am take my kinnie angst 
> 
> insta, twitter, and tiktok: @sombralunaart  
> tumblr: sombraluna
> 
> did this make you sad? me too. tell me in the comments


End file.
